the earth, and as an hypothesis it has these great advantages: it does not require that the old weary round should be trodden again and again, nor that the happy reminiscences of our life (which always outlive the unhappy ones, because we are constantly recalling them) should pass from us when we go on to another. It does not harrow the unfortunate mother with the thought that her newlyborn child is not a part of her, but a strange wandering soul which has taken up its abode in the body she has borne with so much pain. It does not lead, as metempsychosis

has inevitably done, to a doctrine of Nirvana and a longing for annihilation. But it opens the way to a new existence fraught with hopes and freed from the trammels of grosser matter. In a word, it leads man to look upon himself and upon all the creatures with whom he is brought in contact as the germs of future beings. He is immortal because the life-principle within him is eternal and indestructible; he is individually immortal because that principle has here received the stamp of individuality. A. B.

RELIGION AND

AND

THE opinion is still widely entertained that mankind began its work originally under conditions resembling those of the degenerate and effete races whom we meet with at the present day in remote countries and islands, and whom we are accustomed to call savages. As we generally find among these nations a crude fetish-worship, or at best a more or less polytheistic deification of natural phenomena, it is maintained that the religious consciousness of mankind must have begun just in the same way, and that only gradually, among the more highly endowed and favoured races, it developed into monotheism.

Now, in exact opposition to this theory, it has been shown by the most rigid scientific investigation, the more nearly inquiry approaches the first beginnings of mankind, that a noble though as yet undeveloped monotheism forms the real background of the earliest religious consciousness. Although we can only prove this in the case of the oldest cultivated nations, the Egyptians and pre-Vedic Aryans by induction, even if by conclusive induction, it is directly established in the case of the Chinese from their written documents in poetry and history, which reach back to the 22nd century B.C. These afford no foundation whatever for the opinion that the religious ideas which we can trace in them were developed from some

thing more imperfect, but rather show traces of a regularly progressive, if slow, decay. By the time of Khúng-tsè (Confucius) this downward movement had led to so general an indifference that this philosophical reformer does not even once consider it advisable to extend his teaching to really religious questions.

Three religions exist at the present day in China besides the more recently introduced Islam-that of the Sjû, or the learned; the doctrine of Taò; and lastly, Buddhism. The man of the world says in China to those of other persuasions-the enlightened man, who believes in nothing, to those who will listen to him-" Sàn kiáo jí kiáo," which means, "the three religions are one religion." Buddhism, however, was first introduced from India in the year 65 A.D., and the doctrine of Taò, although probably of immense antiquity, is so deep a theosophic speculation that its true followers can hardly have been very numerous at any time. We shall confine ourselves here to the belief of the oldest times before Khúng-fu-tsè, as known to us only through the Shu-King and the Shi-King, and which was without doubt the belief generally held in the period between 2200 and 700 B.C. It was not yet known as the doctrine of the learned, Sjû kiáo, for the word Sjû, and the written sign for it,

do not occur in the classical books before Khúng-tsè.

as in

The religion which prevailed in ancient China recognises no mythology, and no revelation, but is a decided monotheism. In this, many other particulars, the "black-haired race" seems to be the direct heir of the oldest humanity. God is not yet a national God to them; and they recognise him so thoroughly as the Alone and Only One, that they have not even a generic name for God. They call him "Tí" (the Lord or Ruler), "Shăng-Tí" (the Highest Lord), or "Thiân" (the Heaven) with the fullest consciousness that each of these names designates one and the same high Being. If recently the appellative Shang Ti has been rendered by God, this is not wrong, and yet not exact in so far as it supplants a proper name by a general significant term. The highest Lord, or Heaven, is said to be all-powerful, no one can resist His might. He is the self-conscious spirit, who sees, hears, and perfectly knows everything, but is Himself without sound and scent, that is, incorporeal. He is omnipotent, for He is with man in his going out and coming in, and is above and beneath him. He gives life to men, and existence to nations. From Him spring all virtues and all wisdom. He favours none, He hates none; but He loves those who fear Him, and rewards and blesses the good. The crimes of the wicked rouse His anger, and He punishes them. Thus all blessings come from Him, and from Him too all sorrow proceeds. He foresees the course of the world, and predisposes accordingly the destinies of men; and determines their fate as they obey or disobey His will. Therefore kings also reign by His appointment, and He prospers or

Now these various expressions of the old Chinese God-consciousness, date from a time when men neither philosophised nor theorised. They give therefore no answer to many questions which arose later. A religious book, a priestly caste who could have founded a system of theology, are still wanting. All rested on the most ancient tradition, which had gathered round itself different religious ceremonies. If in this theism the Highest being was conceived of in too definite, pure, and true a form to be thought of mythologically—that is, polytheistically-by the human consciousness, he was for this very reason too unattainable, and without power of communication, because without any revelation. So that

This

between him and the world of men there existed for the religious instinct a gulf which needed to be filled up by a mediator. want was supplied by the belief in the continued existence of departed human souls and in a crowd of spirits of nature, who were looked upon both as mediators between mankind and the Highest Lord, and as conveyors of his commands. To gain and retain their good will, therefore, was of the greatest importance; and thus a worship of ancestors and spirits assumed in the Chinese faith and ceremonial as important a part as the worship of saints and angels among Roman Catholics in many places, which

does not indeed set aside the worship of God, but takes a prominent place under many forms, and is fraught with many superstitions. The belief in the continued personal existence of human souls after death was firmly established. It is said of them, they are ascended, they are above, they are in heaven-in which expressions heaven, as often in other cases, means the super-terrestial spaces, not the Highest Lord. They are, however, in immediate and close communication with Him, and it is said of the much-lauded King Wen: "He shines in heaven, and is on the right and left hand of the Highest Lord." The ancestors sympathise in the concerns of their posterity, and watch over them as long as they prove themselves worthy of their care. One cannot be certain of their presence; but they descend to faultless sacrifices offered at the right time, rejoice over them, and repay them by happiness and long life. The spirits of the oldest "sacred" Emperors form a class by themselves. Many spirits of heroes preside over whole departments of human activity, as "the father of agriculture, of war, of breeding horses." It is especially the ancestors of a man's own house who are worshipped, above all, the six nearest to himself and the founder of the family. This is the same in every family, from the Emperor to the lowest subject. The departed continue in such close connection with the living, that the latter consider it their duty to inform them exactly of every important decision, every serious circumstance; and any rank or title which the posterity may acquire is also bestowed on them.

We hear nothing very definite about the state of the departed, and nothing is said about the misery and punishment hereafter

of the wicked. The reward and punishment of moral and immoral conduct were so strongly insisted on in this life, that they probably felt the wicked had made sufficient atonement for their crimes before death. Or possibly they avoided all such questions simply from respect to the dead.

The clear and conscious monotheism of the old Chinese kept them from deifying the powers and appearances of the visible world, and this ought to be considered a strong proof of the antiquity of their monotheism. Still they were far from taking a lifeless materialistic view of the natural world. They considered it and its outward forms as everywhere animated and moved by living spirits, genii and demons, who manifest themselves in those forms of nature in and with which they are to be invoked and worshipped. In this manner the sun, the moon, the planets, and single constellations were honoured as spirits of the visible heaven. As spirits of the earth, the earth itself was honoured first and foremost, and the four quarters of the world, then mountains and hills, woods and valleys, seas, rivers, and springs. We find, also, a guardian spirit of roads and journeys, a genius of drought, &c.

The spirits of nature follow the laws and special commands of the Highest Lord; they possess reason, take a share in human affairs, and exercise an influence over them. Their favour is sought by sacrifices and invocations, and they are informed of all important undertakings. Yet, however powerful they may be, they are always considered as finite and limited beings, and entirely subordinate to the infinite and illimitable Highest Being. Whenever they depart from their beneficent and regular career, when earthquakes, or mountain-slips, droughts or floods,

devastating storms, famine and death, eclipses of sun and moon, injure or frighten mankind, they are warnings and signs that Heaven is displeased with the conduct of men, and threatens them with punishment. They must then, and especially the rulers of the people, examine themselves, confess their sins, do penance, and by these means, as well as by sacrifices and prayers, endeavour to propitiate the Highest Lord.

But even the best man may meet with want of success and misfortune, if from human shortsightedness he acts wrongly, or does the right thing at an unsuitable time. Who would not like, therefore, to know beforehand in any undertaking whether he has made a right choice, or hit on the proper time to carry it out? And so we find everywhere, from the oldest times to the present day, oracles of various kinds, supposed to throw light on the future, to enable men to arrange their actions accordingly. Among the ancient Chinese it was not merely an act of prudence but a positive duty to consult a soothsayer before every important undertaking, first as to whether the thing itself was allowable, and in what way, and then as to the lucky days which would insure success. The appointed soothsayer sought for the augury in the cracks of a roasted tortoise shell or in the leaves of the Shi plant, our common milfoil.

Again, coming events announced themselves, even unasked, by dreams, for whose explanation there were appointed dream interpreters. An observation in the old Hu-King shows us that the sending of prophetic dreams was the work of the Highest Lord. Vigorous people the more vividly they realise a higher power, whose beneficence they are convinced they have experienced, and whose displeasure they know they may arouse, the more they will

feel themselves, on their part, impelled to approach it with gratitude and awe, and prove by their deeds the sincerity of their feelings. Sacrifice is the natural expression of these feelings; it is therefore as old as humanity, and existed among the Chinese, too, in the oldest times. It is also natural that sacrifice should be accompanied by worship and prayers, to express the meaning and intention of the sacrificer. But if we imagine that frequent sacrifices, a settled order of sacrifice, and a thoroughly elaborated sacrificial ceremonial must always be the inventions of a priestly caste, aiming thereby at the carrying out of all sorts of selfish views, this opinion has been disproved by the ancient Chinese. For, whilst they are peculiarly rich in religious ceremonials, they have never had any priestly caste, nor even single priests. All the attributes of a priest belonged to the head of a family, who, with the assistance of his nearest relatives, sacrificed for himself and all belonging to him. This is, after all, but a continuation of the oldest conditions of mankind. The importance of the sacrifice, and the right to offer it, increased in proportion to the social position of the head of a family. If every father of a house might sacrifice to his ancestors, only the nobles, the occupiers of high positions, might offer sacrifices to the guardian spirits of the house; only the princes of the empire to the spirits of the soil and of agriculture, of the hills and streams of their country; and only the Emperor himself to Heaven, the Highest Lord, the earth, the four quarters of the world, and the principal mountain ranges, and largest rivers of the kingdom. That the Prince of Lù also offered sacrifice to the Highest Lord was only a recognised abuse.

The right belonged only